Red Herrings by Tim Heald Page B

‘It’s owned by some friend of cousin Keith. There hasn’t been a gentleman on The Times since that rat Northcliffe took it over.’
    Bognor swallowed and decided to restrict himself to business.
    â€˜What exactly was it you wanted to tell me?’ he asked, quite briskly this time.
    This time there was a very long pause. Bognor realised that much of the squire’s meandering so far, while heartfelt, was really a device to put off the difficult moment when he had to say what he had come to say. It was obviously a message he had qualms about delivering.
    â€˜You’re some sort of intelligence wallah?’ he hazarded at last.
    â€˜In a manner of speaking,’ admitted Bognor. ‘I work for the Board of Trade in Special Investigations.’
    â€˜Ah.’ Sir Nimrod chewed this revelation for a while but obviously found it difficult to digest. He tried another tack.
    â€˜You’re investigating this morning’s business. The body and all that?’
    â€˜Up to a point,’ said Bognor unhelpfully.
    â€˜Up to what point?’ asked Sir Nimrod, reasonably enough.
    â€˜My husband is assisting the police with their enquiries,’ said Monica. ‘The chief inspector is in charge but my husband has a sort of watching brief on behalf of the government.’
    â€˜Much rather not talk to the police. Delicate matter.’
    Neither Simon nor Monica knew quite what to make of this and after a while the squire continued. ‘The fact is,’ he said, ‘that chap they found in the wood this morning was a bit of a skeleton in my cupboard if you follow my drift.’
    â€˜I see,’ said Bognor, now hopelessly adrift.
    â€˜You do promise that this won’t go beyond these four walls?’ He looked searchingly at Bognor who started to reply cautiously but was over-ruled by his wife who said, bossily, ‘Anything you say will be treated in the utmost confidence.’
    She gave her husband one of her celebrated ‘for heaven’s sake shut up and be sensible’ glances.
    â€˜The fact of the matter,’ said Sir Nimrod at last, ‘is that this creature Wilmslow who was done in during the Clout is the son of our old butler, Wilmslow.’
    There was a long pause while the Bognors digested this unlikely revelation and wondered where it was going to lead.
    â€˜Very difficult to explain this,’ he continued, ‘but they were a bad lot those Wilmslows. Father came to us through an advertisement in the Lady and I never was sure about his references. My wife was alive then, God bless her, and she said I was imagining things.’
    He lit another cigarette. ‘You see the fact is,’ he said, ‘that Naomi’s not her mother’s daughter.’
    â€˜I don’t follow,’ said Bognor.
    â€˜She’s Edith’s girl.’
    â€˜Edith?’
    â€˜Mrs Macpherson. I … well, to put it bluntly, Edith and I were walking out together …’
    â€˜You mean you and Edith Macpherson had an affair and Naomi was the result?’ Monica did not mean to be gratuitously rough but she felt it was time to cut some cackle.
    â€˜I suppose so,’ said Sir Nimrod wretchedly.
    â€˜I don’t understand,’ said Bognor. ‘Why didn’t you all get divorced?’
    â€˜Edith wanted to go back to Macpherson,’ said Sir Nimrod staring at the floor. ‘But he wouldn’t have her back with the child.’
    â€˜So you took her on and pretended she was your wife’s child. That must have been rather difficult.’
    â€˜Very difficult time,’ agreed Sir Nimrod still avoiding any eye contact. ‘Muriel never got over it.’
    Bognor remembered Peregrine and Samantha telling him about Lady Herring’s faintly mysterious demise in the moat.
    â€˜But how … I mean surely people noticed …’ Monica, for once, was groping, ‘I mean surely people would have realised that